Here are our four bloggers:
DavidsonCats- A Davidson Wildcats fan.
MocsMania- A Chattanooga Mocs fan.
TheSportsArsenal- The Citadel Bulldogs fan.
UNCGBasketballFan- A UNCG Spartans fan.
SCHEDULE
Monday, December 5
Elon at UNC-Greensboro
Texas-San Antonio at Samford
Tuesday, December 6
Virginia-Wise at Furman
Coastal Carolina at The Citadel
Tulane at Wofford
Appalachian State at Minnesota (Big Ten Network 2 Go)
Wednesday, December 7
Vanderbilt at Davidson (ESPN3)
Western Carolina at Purdue (Big Ten Network)
Mercer at Samford
Saturday, December 10
ETSU at Appalachian State
Lindsey Wilson College at Samford
Chattanooga at Mercer
Virginia Wise at Wofford
Kent State at Western Carolina
Davidson at Charlotte
Georgia Southern at Eastern Kentucky
POWER RANKINGS
1) Davidson 48 (4)
2) College of Charleston 44
3) Elon 39
4) Western Carolina 32
5) Wofford 29
6t) Appalachian State 26
6t) Georgia Southern 26
8) Chattanooga 23
9) Furman 21
10) UNC-Greensboro 9
11) Samford 8
12) The Citadel 7
QUESTIONS
Sum up your team.
DavidsonCats: It was a very good week for Davidson with a narrow road win at Wofford and a comfortable home win against Furman. It was great to see Jake Cohen bounce back from his 0 point, 5 foul game at UNCW. He had 42 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 blocks in the two games. De'Mon Brooks had 38 points and 14 rebounds. I think Chris Czerapowicz played his best game as a Wildcat in the Furman win. He has really worked on his defense and played the top spot in a very effective 1-3-1 for Davidson. Davidson has some tough games and huge opportunities coming with Vanderbilt at our house on Wednesday before hitting the road for Charlotte and Kansas. The Wildcats are definitely getting better, adding some new wrinkles to the offense and defense, and developing some players. We'll see how it all pays off when we resume conference action next month.
MocsMania: The Mocs had an 0-3 week that started off bad, then got slightly better, then got much better, but never resulted in a win. The Mocs loss last Sunday to Gardner-Webb in overtime was downright disgusting in a lot of ways. The loss at Georgia Southern on Thursday was not as bad as some seemed to think it was. Then the Mocs took College of Charleston to double overtime before losing on Saturday on the road. You can't say, "Chattanooga is back," like Keegan Bell did after Saturday's loss, but you can say that the Mocs are improving. Rico White is getting better all the time, Ricky Taylor and Chris Early are starting to come out of an early season funk, Keegan Bell had a triple double against Charleston, and Dontay Hamtpon has been playing well. Lance Stokes looked really good against Georgia Southern coming back from his ankle injury. Omar Wattad and Drazen Zlovaric both need to get it going. Zlovaric looks to be slowly improving. Wattad looks like his confidence is shot for some reason. Maybe too much pressure- probably related to his back injury from the preseason. Regardless, the Mocs new guys are getting better all the time, which means the Mocs will be a much tougher out in January than they are right now. They need to start winning games, though.
TheSportsArsenal: It was a disappointing week for The Citadel. Although not favored in either game (at CofC, at Wofford), I had expected slightly better play from the Bulldogs. The game against the Cougars featured way too many turnovers. Against the Terriers, The Citadel started off horrendously, particularly on defense, and never recovered. Porous defense (and bad starts as a result) has been a theme so far this season for the Bulldogs, one that must be corrected. Mike Groselle continues to work hard and get his points and rebounds (including 19 boards against the CofC), but it hasn't been nearly enough.
UNCGBasketballFan: First, there's that whole Twitter mess that I'm going discuss below. After that, this week has basically been divided into two different parts. There was the first part of the week where G got crushed by it's rival, then had the team and fans explode on each other. Then there was the road trip to the high country where Coach Dement completely changed the starting lineup and got some solid success out of it. That is a tough way to start the SoCon season and I thought that the Spartans actually played pretty well on the road swing. Weird to say that I'm actually sitting here today a little more hopeful about the team. However, I think that Monday's game at home against a red hot Elon is almost a must-win to salvage something of the SoCon season.
Which game are you most looking forward to this week that does not involve your team?
DavidsonCats: We have two high schools here in Mooresville, NC. One is Lake Norman High School. They won the state championship in basketball in 2010 and sent two players from that team to Mercer. I'm looking forward to Mercer's games at Samford and home for Chattanooga this week.
MocsMania: The easy answer is when Davidson hosts Vanderbilt. The Wildcats have their shot at an at large bid in their hands with a win there. That being said, any time there is a conference game on the schedule, that has to be the game I'm most looking forward to. For that reason, I'm going with UNCG hosting Elon as the game I am most looking forward to. (For those who don't know, UNCGSpartans.com provides free video coverage of all their home games.) The Spartans are 0-2 in the SoCon, and desperately need a win to avoid 0-3, all against North teams. Elon can continue their early season surge and get to 2-0 in SoCon play and take command of the North. This is a huge in-division game, and the last SoCon game until after New Year's.
TheSportsArsenal: Tulane at Wofford. Ed Conroy brings a 9-0 Green Wave team to Spartanburg. Admittedly, Tulane's early season schedule has been tissue-soft, but you can't do better than undefeated, and the ninth victory was against Georgia Tech.
UNCGBasketballFan: I think Davidson against Charlotte should be interesting. The Wildcats almost never beat Charlotte. I think they even lost to them during their Elite 8 year. However, I think this Davidson team is superior to Charlotte.
Let's jump ahead for a moment and assume that Davidson and College of Charleston finish first and second (in some order) in the South. Which team finishes third?
DavidsonCats: Not Citadel. Wofford, Furman, and GSU are all playing better than expected. The coaches picked GSU 3rd in the preseason. They certainly have the talent to do it. I'm a big Willie Powers fan and think that his return will give them some leadership and discipline on the court. I guess I'd go with GSU to finish 3rd, but Wofford and Furman are both better than I expected.
MocsMania: I GUESS I'll go with Georgia Southern. The Citadel appears to me to be stapled into last place despite the best efforts of Groeselle. But Wofford and Furman both have been decent. I'm beginning to think that I may have been overrating Furman earlier this year (they looked good against Elon, but not great last week), but Wofford and Georgia Southern both look like good teams to me. Both teams look like they will be tough outs for anyone in the conference. I picked GSU in the preseason to finish third, so I guess I'll stick with them for third place for now. They really showed up this weekend against Chattanooga and Appalachian State, the two North favorites. They need to prove they can take it to the road.
TheSportsArsenal: If I had to guess today, I would pick Wofford would finish third in the SoCon South, assuming the Terriers can shoot the ball fairly well and don't wear out their guards over the course of the season.
UNCGBasketballFan: I think Ga Southern may have thrown a wrench into that scenario this weekend. However, if we're using this assumption, I go ahead and say Ga Southern.
In response to the UNCG players tweets this week about the fans (go to this link from DavidsonCats if you don't know about it- discussion on DavidsonCats), what are your thoughts on athletes using Twitter to vent?
DavidsonCats: College athletes should know better than to vent in social media. It has caused schools to get investigated and sanctioned by the NCAA. It caused an Elon football player some problems just this season. I'm stunned that the coach/AD/chancellor/whoever didn't jump on the UNCG players this week.
MocsMania: It is mind boggling that athletes continue to go out there and do this sort of thing to me. The UNCG players are just the latest example. An Elon football player got kicked off the team earlier this year for comments he made on Twitter. (Not sure about how that story ended and if he got reinstated.) Why did UNCG not respond with at least some sort of suspension for the players for acting out like this? How can you let the players tell the hardcore fans that they are not real fans? At the same time, I kind of get the players responses. It must hurt a bit to be in the situation to hear that negativity swirling around your program. Still, you just can't insult the fans. It goes against everything about athletics (unless, apparently, you are Roy Williams). I don't get venting on Twitter. Venting on Facebook is a little bit better, because that is a little bit more controlled, depending on who your "friends" are. But you can't put negative stuff about your fan base or coaching staff out for public consumption. At least, you shouldn't.
TheSportsArsenal: I am frequently surprised by the lack of awareness (if not downright naïveté) young people have when it comes to social media. You would think the younger generation would have a better understanding of the public nature of things like Facebook and Twitter and the concept of something "going viral", but to a significant degree that isn't the case. That isn't just restricted to athletes, though.
UNCGBasketballFan: I was absolutely floored to see what those guys wrote on Twitter. I was (and still am) furious about it. I shut down my blog for a bit b/c I was quite concerned that I was going to post something that I would eventually regret. I also shut it down b/c I felt like I shouldn't spend my time doing anything for that program if there was absolutely no appreciation for my work. Apparently word has made it back to them or someone close to the program b/c at least one of the Twitter accounts is now protected. I'm still left with tons of questions. First, why are players going on message boards after a 22 point loss to your rival? What were you expecting to read on there? I honestly don't remember what all was written on the deleted thread. I know part of it was me questioning if our team was really ready to play. Everyone sitting near me at the game commented on how "amped up" A&T was before that contest. So, it wasn't like I invented something to be angry about. But then for a couple of players (and a former one) to take to Twitter to blast the part of the fan base that actually still cares about basketball at G was just mind bogglin. Compared to most SoCon schools, UNCG has a large student body and a large alumni base living all in the triad and they still have trouble drawing any major numbers at the coliseum. I think it's safe to call the UNCG fan base apathetic. So, to give a big (digital) middle finger to the part that is showing up every night and is hardcore about the program makes no sense to me.
Also if I were a coach of a team that might be starting to worry about my current employment, I think it might be in my best interest to keep my players from making very public statements that might reflect poorly on my team and my university. You can delete posts on Twitter, but it's impossible to delete them if they've already made their way into other parts of the Internet.
So we've played a couple of games in the conference season. The South was far better than the North a year ago. The North was supposed to be a little bit better than the South heading into the year this year. Which division do you believe is better, top to bottom?
DavidsonCats: The current Sagarin/Pomeroy/RPI numbers all agree that the South is the stronger division. Of course, there is some bias in these numbers based on prior seasons. I thought that the North would be significantly stronger than the South this season. So far, I'm wrong. The South is 3-1 in head-to-head games. Wofford and Furman were expected to be dreadful, but are playing pretty well. Davidson and CofC are both better than anticipated. ASU and Chattanooga were the popular picks in the preseason. They are a combined 1-3 and both took beatings at GSU. But Chattanooga gave CofC all they handle in Charleston and had many chances to win. I think the head-to-head game total between the divisions this year will be very close.
MocsMania: Count me as one who thought the North would be slightly better this year than the South. Count me as one that has been completely disappointed with the North's play so far this year. When looking at the Mocs early struggles, I have looked around at the rest of the North, and (outside of Elon) thought that no one is playing well enough to have clearly established themselves as better than the Mocs. That's how rotten the North has been. At the same time, College of Charleston has been better than expected preseason (when I picked them to finish second, but a distant second), and Furman and Wofford have exceeded expectations, and Georgia Southern proved this weekend that they are not underperforming. The South is better- for now. I expect the North to come back after the New Year and win the head-to-head, but based on what we've seen, I have no real reason to believe that.
TheSportsArsenal: The south is the better division. It has the two best teams. Elon is the only team in the north division to distinguish itself so far this season. Chattanooga was supposed to carry the flag for the north but has been disappointing. Wofford and GSU could be a little better than expected and UNCG might be worse.
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